Policy Experts and the Media Agree: Trump’s Few Policy Plans Are Devastating for the Middle Class and Don’t Add Up

NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–September 26, 2016. In a prebuttal to the first presidential debate, Hillary for America released a review of Donald Trump’s few policy proposals from experts and journalists, who have judged them variously as incoherent, unrealistic, excessively costly, and devastating for working families – where he has even bothered to address the issues at all. Whether it’s a dangerous immigration plan based on mass-deportation and a “great and beautiful wall,” a half-baked child care plan that would leave millions of middle-class families to fend for themselves, tax and economic proposals to benefit the rich and explode the national debt while leaving middle-class families holding the bag, or a broader economic agenda that would plunge our country into recession and cost us millions of jobs — Trump’s policy proposals have been panned by experts and critics across the political spectrum.

ECONOMIC PLAN

Donald Trump’s economic playbook has only one trick: to get ahead and stiff others. From a decades-long pattern of scamming small businesses and outsourcing jobs, to a proposal to cut taxes for billionaires like himself and his family at the expense of everyone else, Trump’s self-serving strategy is clear. According to a former economic advisor to John McCain, Trump’s policies would destroy nearly 3.5 million jobs. In fact, economists and business leaders across the political spectrum agree that his economic plan would plunge our country back into recession.

“Quantifying Mr. Trump’s economic policies is complicated by their lack of specificity…Mr. Trump’s economic proposals will also result in larger federal government deficits and a heavier debt load…. the economy will be significantly weaker if Mr. Trump’s economic proposals are adopted…four basic conclusions regarding the impact of Mr. Trump’s economic proposals can be reached: 1) they will result in a less global U.S. economy; 2) they will lead to larger government deficits and more debt; 3) they will largely benefit very high-income households; and 4) they will result in a weaker U.S. economy, with fewer jobs and higher unemployment.”

“Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump…garners no support from any of the White House economists who have advised U.S. presidents for the past half-century. The Wall Street Journal this month reached out to all 45 surviving former members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under the past eight presidents, going back to Richard Nixon, to get their views on this year’s presidential election. Among 17 Republican appointees who responded to Journal inquiries, none said they supported Mr. Trump.

“…if Trump’s policies were enacted it would be some form of disaster for the economy. If you force 11 million undocumented immigrants to leave in a year, you would be looking at a depression. It would not help the people he is talking to, they would be the first to go down.”

“For those keeping track, under Trump’s trade plans, we would see higher prices, reduced spending power, fewer jobs, and a weaker economy, both here at home and abroad, according to the analysis. Of course, that’s the last thing our country and the global economy need right now.”

TAXES

Donald Trump has put out so many different tax plans during this campaign that we’re losing count. But his latest effort is more of the same: doubling down on tax cuts that benefit billionaires like himself and his family, while maintaining his Trump Loophole — the massive backdoor tax cut that would let the wealthy pay less than half the current tax rate on a significant portion of their income. He has also proposed a tax cut that would save his own family $4 billion (that is, if Trump is worth as much as he says he is) – while doing nothing for 99.8% of Americans. And even as Trump is exploding the debt by more than $5 trillion with tax cuts weighted towards millionaires and billionaires, his plan includes a bait-and-switch that would result in millions of middle-class families, including half of all single parents, paying higher taxes.

“The organization of deficit hawks projected that Trump’s plans would increase the deficit by $5.3 trillion over a decade.”

Vox: Donald Trump’s “new” tax plan: a giveaway to the rich that he pretends helps the middle class:

“ Long story short: This is big money, going from very successful businesses to their wealthy shareholders, that Trump is proposing to tax at a much lower rate.

Fundamentally, Trump is still offering voters the same approach to taxes he’s been offering all campaign: massive cuts for corporations of all kinds, big rate cuts for top earners, and benefits supposedly aimed at the middle class that offer less than they initially appear to.”

“The right-leaning Tax Foundation released an analysis Monday that said Trump’s campaign would shrink federal revenues by as much as $5.9 trillion over 10 years…In that top 1 percent, the income growth is particularly high — 10.2 to 16 percent.”

Under Donald Trump’s child care plan, close to 80% of families might, at most, get only four cents on the dollar for child care costs—and millions of these families could very well get nothing or even face a tax increase under Trump’s overall plan. This, while Trump’s plan would provide around 40 cents on the dollar or more to taxpayers in the top bracket. It’s no surprise this regressive policy came from the man living in the penthouse of Trump Tower, who has relied on government his entire life to help pad his own pockets.

The Guardian: Trump’s child care plan is good for the rich. But what about the rest of us?:

“Trump’s plan completely fails to address the day-to-day realities of America’s working families, because it fails to address the underlying problem: it does nothing to make child care affordable. In the United States, the average cost of center-based child care for the typical working family with an infant and preschooler is about $18,000, a steep price for families to cover. If a family cannot afford child care, a tax deduction is irrelevant – a family can’t deduct something that they can’t pay for to begin with.”

“However, as reporter Jeremy Diamond clarified, the plan does not entail six weeks of full paid maternity leave. Instead, it offers six weeks of full unemployment benefits. Trump also announced a plan for parents to deduct child-care expenses from their income taxes, capped at the ‘average cost of care’ per state, and deductibles for stay-at-home parents.

All said, Trump’s plan is a big government idea very obviously meant to cater to female voters—and very obviously Ivanka’s brainchild.”

Salon: Trump’s child-care policy: A combination of the useless and the inadequate:

“As Trump hinted last month, the centerpiece of his plan is a provision letting parents deduct the costs of child care from their taxes. The problem here is that people who need the most help affording child care — poor and low-income families — frequently don’t have any federal income tax burden. If they’re already paying zero dollars in federal income tax, an extra deduction won’t do them any good; they’ll still be paying zero dollars.”

MATERNITY LEAVE

Trump’s “maternity leave” plan is demeaning and damaging–casting women as the sole caretaker for a child and undercutting women in the workplace. By only providing leave to married mothers who give birth, the plan tells us which parents Trump doesn’t believe count: single moms, women who can’t physically have a child, same-sex couples that use a surrogate, parents who adopt, and all fathers. It’s not only demeaning, it’s also harmful. Studies have shown that providing paid leave to new mothers, but not to new fathers, negatively affects women’s return to the workplace, can discourage employers from hiring or promoting female employees, and can increase the gender pay-gap.

“Let’s repeat that: Trump’s solution for struggling American families leaves out men. More than any other problem with the plan ― and there are lots ― omitting half the population is its profoundest and most revelatory flaw, confirming once again Trump’s antiquated, sexist and harmful worldview: Men work. Women do the child-raising. The end.”

Vox: Donald Trump’s plan to fund a paid family leave program is totally absurd:

“Since everything we know so far about Trump’s plan fits into two tweets, it’s hard to say for sure what he’s envisioning. But 88 percent of workers right now aren’t covered by family leave, so requiring businesses to pay for it on their own would be a very big burden. And if leave is really “guaranteed,” it’s going to require something more than a tax credit to make that happen.”

“Another way Trump’s plan falls short of Clinton’s in scope is that it doesn’t do much for the poor. Most of the childcare benefits would come in the form of income tax breaks, which won’t benefit the poorest Americans, who don’t pay income taxes and would have to pony up for childcare up front.”

“In sum, if Trump’s maternity leave plan were ever enacted into law, it would likely be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. Trump has demonstrated utter contempt for constitutional rights and limitations on government power on a shockingly wide range of issues. His discriminatory maternity leave plan is another addition to a troubling list.”

Washington Post: Donald Trump’s new paid maternity leave plan might exclude single mothers: “The plan is discriminating against fathers, fathers and mothers who adopt, LGBT parents and apparently some set of unmarried parents,” said Carmel Martin, executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.”

FOREIGN POLICY

Donald Trump hasn’t said much in terms of real plans to keep our country safe. But foreign policy experts agree, the ideas Trump has mentioned are dangerous, reckless, and wrongheaded. Yet Trump continues to spew fact-free rhetoric about global issues that would make us less secure, including consistent claims that he has a “secret” plan to defeat ISIS, threats to break up NATO along with accusations that NATO countries are “ripping off the United States”, and reckless comments on nuclear weapon.

Washington Post:It’s almost like Donald Trump’s secret plan to defeat ISIS never actually existed: “But on the list of things on which Trump have over-promised and under-delivered, this surely ranks toward the top. He promised he had a “foolproof” way of ending a foreign policy challenge of massive consequence, and now he’s punting to the generals.”

“The bottom line is this: Trump’s erratic and belligerent slogans are no substitute for policies based on facts and sound judgment.”

PoliticsUSA: The Reviews Are In: Trump ISIS Speech Was Full Of Lies And Gibberish That Made No Sense:
“The consensus among non-partisan observers is that the speech that Donald Trump gave about ISIS was so full of lies, inconsistencies, and gibberish that it made no sense.”

New York Times: Donald Trump Says NATO is ‘Obsolete,’ UN is ‘Political Game’

“President Obama on Friday rebuked Mr. Trump for his comments, saying he worried the real estate billionaire “doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean Peninsula or the world generally.”

“Howls of inaccuracy came from the South Korean Foreign Ministry, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, and even the White House. Ambassador Mark Lippert said Seoul pays for 55% of all non-personnel costs. And former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill was more succinct. He told CNN, “I don’t know what he’s talking about but clearly neither does he.”

Business Insider: ‘Total catastrophe’: Experts say Donald Trump’s position on nuclear proliferation would be a disaster

“ But experts from two nonpartisan organizations opposed to the spread of nuclear weapons told Business Insider his position would be dangerous. Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said Japan building nuclear weapons would be a “total catastrophe for Japan and US nuclear power programs.”

The Atlantic: With His Finger on the Trigger: The insane risks of Donald Trump’s stance on nuclear weapons:

“Stephen Walt, a prominent realist scholar, has written, “realists prefer to ‘speak softly and carry a big stick;’ Trump’s modus operandi consists of waving the big stick while running a big mouth.” His loose talk during the campaign has already damaged America’s alliances. And on the central question of nuclear weapons, he has clearly exposed himself to be weak-kneed in his acceptance of international proliferation.”

HEALTHCARE

Donald Trump has promised that he would immediately work to repeal Obamacare, taking health insurance away from 20 million people – and letting the insurance companies write the rules all over again. Trump’s suggested healthcare plan would cost hundreds of billions more, would nearly double the uninsured rate and does not address people with pre-existing conditions. Americans cannot afford that.

“Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan foundation that studies healthcare, released a study on Friday analyzing the two candidate’s plans. If Trump becomes president, up to 25 million people could lose their coverage, most of them low-income and already in poor health. Under Clinton, 9.6 million more people could gain access to healthcare.”

“A new study that examines some major health care proposals from the presidential candidates finds that Donald Trump would cause about 20 million to lose coverage while Hillary Clinton would provide coverage for an additional 9 million people.”

CNBC: Obamacare repeal would lead to 24 million more people without health insurance:

“If the next president and Congress repeal Obamacare — as many Republican elected officials want to do — there could end up being more people without health insurance than before the law went into effect, a new study says. A total of 24 million more people would lose health coverage by 2021 if the Affordable Care Act was repealed, according to the study issued Monday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute.”

IMMIGRATION

Donald Trump’s immigration plan remains the same as it’s always been: Send a deportation force into American communities to tear apart families and deport 16 million people from the United States—including every undocumented immigrant and American citizens born here to undocumented parents. Experts say Trump’s immigration policies would be detrimental to the economy. Oh, and he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States and falsely claims Mexico will pay for his giant concrete wall.

David Leopold: Deconstructing Donald Trump’s horrifying 10-step assault on immigration, due process and other cherished American values:

“If Trump were to deport 10 percent of undocumented workers per year during two terms in office, based on the limitations of the model, the U.S. would have about 156 million jobs in 2030, compared to the 160 million jobs that the country would have with the its current immigration policies.”

“Like usual, [Trump] doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Rodolfo Acuña, professor emeritus of Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge, told The Huffington Post … Brownell said, ‘Just give them some live ammo, let them shoot a few people. Then everyone will be scared and they won’t come across the border,” he said. “Really humane.”

CityLab: The Price of Mass Deportation; Trump wants to deport 11 million immigrants. Here are the likely economic consequences of that:

California could lose $100 billion of its GDP, annually. Texas could lose $60 billion. New Jersey, $25 billion. All but 5 U.S. states would see at least 1 percent of their GDP disappear each year. The resulting nationwide losses would build up to about $4.7 trillion in ten years.

Throughout this campaign, Trump’s statements on trade have been erratic and irresponsible — full of bluster, empty promises, and recklessness that would put American jobs at risk. Trump repeatedly rejects the idea that Americans can compete and win in the global economy and does not offer a concrete plan to actually create good-paying jobs here in America.

New York Times: Why a President Trump Could Start a Trade War With Surprising Ease:

“Mr. Trump is proposing a reordering of the global economic system that would fundamentally reshape the structure of American industry. He could start a trade war that would threaten not only American exporters who need access to foreign markets, but also any business that relies on commodities or products made overseas.”

“The study, from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, attempted to quantify the impact of Trump’s proposed trade policies. Its conclusion: If a President Trump did what Candidate Trump promised, the US economy would lose more than 4 million jobs and fall into a recession.”

“Two powerful groups, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce, moved swiftly to condemn Trump’s [trade policy] speech. Both groups often align themselves with pro-business GOP policy makers, and it is especially unusual for them to take on the Republican presidential nominee so directly.”

“The study released on Monday by researchers at the non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics illustrates how, even as the New York businessman pledges to boost growth and create millions of jobs, most mainstream economists view his economic policies as dangerous quackery.”

VETERANS ADMINISTRATION

The policy reforms Donald Trump has proposed would put us on a path toward the wholesale privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Moving towards privatization as Trump’s plan does would gut the VA of the resources needed to provide high-quality, coordinated care. Fully privatizing the VA – the likely result of Trump’s proposals – is not a fix at all; it’s an ideological crusade that will only compound the problem. It would deprive our veterans of access to the specialized care they require and deserve and leave them at the mercy of a private healthcare market that’s ill-suited to handle their needs. And on top of it, Trump has proposed slashing funding for veterans’ health care by 29% within 10 years.

“To help pay for his tax cut plan, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is proposing to cut total funding for non-defense programs funded through the annual appropriations process by 1 percent below the previous year’s total each year. While this may sound modest, the cumulative cut would be very substantial. By the tenth year (2026), non-defense appropriations would be about 29 percent below current levels, after accounting for inflation.”

“And what about the rest of Trump’s “10-point plan”? The entire list is online, but it’s woefully thin. It’s really just a series of shallow slogans that mean very little, including the first point: Trump intends to appoint a VA Secretary “whose sole purpose will be to serve veterans.”

“The other issue with Trump’s broad proposal is the price tag. According to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump’s plan to reimburse vets for visits to any doctor they like would cost half a trillion dollars over 10 years.”

POLL: 64% of veterans oppose privatization — with 54% of them strongly opposing it — while only 29% support it.

NO POLICY

Donald Trump has run a campaign devoid of detailed plans – instead it’s been full of bluster, empty words, demagogic rhetoric. He has no real plans to improve the lives of the American people or make this country any better or safer.

“THE FACTS: By any measure, Clinton has released far more specific plans on far more topics than her GOP rival. Trump’s website currently lays out eight policy positions, including spelling out his “economic vision,” his plans for child care and immigration reform and his plan to “pay for the wall.” Clinton’s offers position on 38 issues for potential voters to read.”

LA Times: Clinton has enough policy to fill a book, while Trump has said little about how he’d govern

“To only has Trump offered no plan to tackle mental healthcare, he’s presented the barest of outlines for most of his governing agenda, even as he now accuses Clinton of “running a policy-free campaign,” as he claimed at recent rally in Iowa. Trump’s vague tax, healthcare and national security proposals have baffled experts on both sides of the political aisle who have struggled to make sense of what Trump is offering. Even Trump’s immigration policy, perhaps the signature issue of his campaign, has proved difficult to decipher.”

“He has boasted that his main policy adviser is himself and the advisers he does have say he doesn’t read briefing papers. He has mocked Hillary Clinton for surrounding herself with “eggheads” and churning out reams of wonky government reform proposals. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who will be speaking on Trump’s behalf at this week’s Republican convention in Cleveland, recently said “it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know a lot about the issues.”

TIME: In an interview Trump admits he isn’t worried about creating policy as they are “a waste of paper”

“He [Trump] even mocks her focus on putting out so many policy proposals, a longtime tradition for major party nominees. “She’s got people that sit in cubicles writing policy all day. Nothing’s ever going to happen. It’s just a waste of paper.” (The Clinton campaign counts that paper as a point of pride: 73,645 words of policy and counting.)”